by Sara Rosett
Zoe busied herself gathering up the trash. “A few weeks ago. I told Kendra I couldn’t housesit.”
“Because she has a cat! Come on, Zoe, tell the truth. You didn’t take the job because you’re allergic.”
Zoe turned away, dumped the trash, and then hid behind the refrigerator door. “It wasn’t the cat. It was the fact that Kendra is the devil incarnate. Looks like we’re going to get some rain.” The overhead lights in the kitchen seemed to glow brighter as the light outside shifted. The thick layer of dark clouds slid across the sky, bathing the landscape in sepia tones. “Want something else to drink? I’ve got water and ice tea.”
“Water’s fine.” Helen had her arms crossed, and a stubborn frown crinkled her forehead. “Don’t try to change the subject.”
Zoe filled two glasses with water from the sink. “The point is,” she said as she crossed back to the island, “that I can set my own hours. I value my freedom, and whatever happens, happens. I can’t control things. If the Jetta dies, I’ll find something else or get it fixed. And, I’ll always have some income, thanks to Aunt Amanda.”
“At least you’ve got one sane relative,” Helen said.
Zoe’s Aunt Amanda believed real estate was the ultimate investment. When she’d moved to Florida to live in her Sarasota condo, she’d asked Zoe to act as the property manager for her commercial properties, two stand-alone offices built side-by-side, like a duplex, in a business park. After five years, her aunt decided to live in Florida year-round and she’d deeded the commercial properties to Zoe, saying she had plenty to live on from her other real estate investments. Zoe had tried to talk her out of it, but Aunt Amanda had refused to listen and told Zoe to consider the properties an early inheritance.
“Amazing that I’m even halfway normal, isn’t it, considering Mom carted me from one audition to another from the time I turned three months old until I was eleven.”
“Well, at least you got to live on a tropical island for three summers in a row. I was jealous.”
Zoe sipped her water, then said, “Yeah, the island was great, but the downside is that now the three most mortifying years of my life are available on DVD for $14.99.”
“What is your mom up to these days? You haven’t mentioned her lately.”
“She’s at a spa outside of Sedona for the next two weeks for a ‘Freeing Serenity Treatment,’” Zoe said.
“What’s that?”
“Not sure, but it involves total separation from the stress of everyday existence and silence. No television, no music, no phones, no computer.”
“Your mom is going a week without TV? Without E! News? How will she survive? And why would she do that to herself? Won’t she go through withdrawal?”
Zoe shrugged. Her mom lived in continual hope of a new reality show contract and followed celebrity news like some people followed politics. “I think it has something to do with a certain producer’s wife being at the spa during the same time mom is there.”
Helen said, “It all makes sense now. And I bet she expects you to be in it, too.”
“Which I never will. If only I’d known what emancipated minor meant ten years ago.” Zoe said it flippantly, but she was only half-joking.
The floorboards at the top of the stairs groaned. Helen looked at Zoe. “Is that Jack?” Zoe nodded and Helen asked, “What’s he doing here?”
“He lives here, Helen. He always stops here after his run to shower and change before he goes back to the office,” Zoe said, listening for his tread on the stairs.
“I don’t think it’s good for you, living this way,” Helen said with a glance at the ceiling. “Still together.”
“What is this? Pick on Zoe day? Well, I can play the same game. When will you have a baby?”
Helen held up her hands. “Okay, I get it.” Her tone softened. “I worry about you, that’s all.”
“I know you’re concerned, but it’s not like Jack and I are living together. We live in the same house. It’s really no different than living in an apartment building or duplex. We hardly see each other.”
“But you’re still...connected to him,” she said, her tone gentle. “You’ve got his drawings on the refrigerator, for God’s sake,” Helen said, swinging a hand to the fridge. Jack had a tendency to draw when he was bored. Not crosshatches and squares that Zoe made while she waited on the phone, which turned into splotches of ink that only resembled a blob of Play-Doh. Jack’s impromptu sketches were more art than doodles. Zoe looked at the fridge where she’d used poetry magnets to attach Jack’s sketches. There was the Dallas skyline drawn in the margin of the phone bill, a sketch of a book splayed open in the corner of a sticky note, and her favorite, ivy leaves climbing into the text of a magazine article like the words were bricks in a wall. “They’re just little sketches,” Zoe said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Helen didn’t reply, only dropped her chin and looked at Zoe with a sorrowful look.
“You’ve still got that Pirates of the Caribbean poster with Johnny Depp—the one you got when you were fifteen. I know it’s on the inside closet door in your guestroom. You haven’t thrown it away.”
Helen shifted on her barstool. “That’s for my nieces. They stay in there when they come to visit. Besides, a movie poster is different from personal mementos. And if I had any personal mementos from Johnny Depp, they wouldn’t be tucked away in a closet, let me tell you,” Helen said with a grin and they both laughed, breaking the slight tension between them. They might argue, but they were good enough friends that they could argue.
Another noise from upstairs caught their attention. “Will he come in here?” Helen asked.
“No. He never does.” She paused, listening for his rapid descent and the solid thump of the front door as it closed—Jack always came down the stairs fast, but it was absolutely quiet.
Helen raised her eyebrows at Zoe. “Is he gone?”
Zoe walked over to the kitchen doorway. Unlike the popular open floor plan of Helen’s newly constructed house, Zoe’s house was designed in an earlier era when each room was self-contained. Nothing flowed, and there were few open spaces, which suited Zoe and Jack just fine. The choppy design was exactly what they wanted, but it meant that Zoe couldn’t see the stairs or the hallway that ran along the stairs to the front door. She leaned around the doorframe then peered up the stairs, listening, but the only sound was a crack of thunder.
“Jack?” she called. She returned to the kitchen, flexed a large envelope, and pulled out a stack of pictures. “He missed these,” she said with a little frown. She and Jack communicated mostly by message. They left notes or bills on the hall table, which was where she’d placed the envelope, figuring he’d pick it up on his way back to the office. She debated invading the upstairs for a moment to leave it in his room, but dismissed the idea. She wouldn’t want him poking around in her room.
“Oh, pictures,” Helen said, wiping her hands on a napkin. “Let me see. You hardly ever see actual pictures anymore. Everything’s digital now.”
“These aren’t mine, and they aren’t high quality. They’re on printer paper. Connor mailed them,” Zoe said, referring to Jack’s business partner. “I have no idea why he’d mail anything snail mail in the first place or why he’d send it here.”
“Maybe he forgot the office address?”
“But remembered Jack’s home address? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know Connor’s address off the top of my head.”
“Where were these taken?” Helen asked, squinting. “They’re cute. I love the cobblestones and the sidewalk café, but they’re so grainy they’re almost Impressionistic.”
“I couldn’t figure it out either. Connor’s afraid of anything made after 1995, so he probably took them with his phone, which has a terrible camera. I heard him complaining the other day about how he couldn’t use his regular camera because he couldn’t find a place to develop film, if you can believe it.”
Zoe flipped through the pictures again, which were
all street scenes, except one. She paused at a close-up of a Madonna, the paint faded and crackled. The figures were flat, almost one-dimensional, barely standing out from the blue background with its sprinkling of stars. She fingered the corner of the photo, thinking it was an odd sort of thing for Connor to photograph. He wasn’t especially religious or interested in art, either.
“Weird,” Helen said, handing the pictures back. She stood and slipped her Coach bag on her shoulder. “Well, I have to get back, too. Maybe I can beat the rain. Looks like it’s going to be a huge storm. Think about the job,” she instructed as she left.
“Fine. I’ll think about it,” she said to placate Helen. As she shut the door behind Helen, she felt a twinge of misgiving. A job at the county would be a smart move—secure and safe, but she couldn’t do it. It might be wise, but she’d be miserable. She knew she would, and it’s not smart to make yourself miserable, she reasoned. A prick of doubt wiggled inside. She squashed it down and went back to work.
Half an hour later, the storm unleashed torrents of rain, and she spent fifteen minutes in the hall bathroom after the tornado siren sounded. She emerged from the hall bath and noticed that besides missing the envelope, Jack had also forgotten to lock the front door. “That’s odd,” she said to herself. He was such a stickler for locking doors and windows. Strange that he would forget.
Dallas
Tuesday, 1:15 p.m.
JACK Andrews pushed the windshield wipers to HIGH. Rain pounded his windshield in thick torrents of water that drowned out the local news on the radio. He’d hoped to catch the latest market report, but he could do that when he got to the office. GRS, an abbreviation for Green Recyclable Services, was located in a business park made up of single story stand-alone businesses designed to look more like homes than offices. The developer hadn’t skimped on trees, sprinkling islands of oaks and cottonwood trees along with plenty of hedges for privacy. Most of the tenants were dentists, accountants, or small medical offices.
He wheeled the car into the slot directly in front of the door to GRS, still slightly amazed at the heavy rain. These Texas thunderstorms that swept across the plains were unlike anything he’d seen growing up in middle Georgia where rain usually meant steady storms that skimmed overhead, gently soaking the land. Here, thunderstorms were vicious, bearing down quickly with winds that drove rain slicing through the air. Tiny pellets of hail tapped against the roof and hood of the car. His blue Accord was seven years old and already had plenty of dents and dings. He’d bought it used when he moved to Texas and wasn’t going to worry if it got some hail damage.
He glanced at Connor’s new silver BMW at the far back corner of the small lot. Connor was going to be pissed if he got some hail damage. Despite clinging to his antique cell phone and having a serious aversion to any sort of digital technology (he refused to use the office coffeemaker because it didn’t have an actual on/off toggle switch), Connor was finicky when it came to his other personal possessions, always wanting the best. Zoe put it more succinctly, saying, “He’s a snob.” Connor’s idiosyncrasies didn’t bother Jack. What Connor did with his salary—what he bought or didn’t buy—didn’t matter to Jack. Jack handled most of the computer-related aspects of the business anyway, except for the accounting software, which Connor had somehow managed to grasp to relieve Jack in at least one area.
With the heavy downpour, Jack was surprised his business partner hadn’t cleared out of the office early to get his precious car into the garage of his newly purchased McMansion before the storm arrived, but then he remembered Connor had told their secretary, Sharon, he’d cover the office that afternoon during her dentist appointment, an unusually nice gesture, for him. GRS was still a tiny start-up, just the three of them, and they had to cover for each other. However, it looked like they wouldn’t stay small much longer.
Jack sprinted from the car to the door but was still drenched by the time he made it inside.
He crossed the small reception area. “Connor, you in there?” There was no answer from behind the closed door to the office on the left of Sharon’s desk. Probably on the phone, Jack thought as he loosened his tie. Connor spent more time talking on the phone than he did sleeping. He tended to shout and drop a lot of curse words, which Sharon didn’t like. Lately, she’d taken to shutting his door to make a point. Jack crossed behind Sharon’s desk where her monitor screen was spinning through a kaleidoscope of abstract shapes.
He stepped into his office, which was opposite Connor’s and picked up his gym bag with his clean workout clothes. His suit jacket and dress shirt were soaked, and his pants were wet from the ankles to the knees. He quickly changed into a black Aeropostale T-shirt, gray workout shorts, and Asics running shoes. He dragged his fingers through his damp brown hair, finger combing it off his forehead. He sat down at his desk then went completely still. Something was wrong.
His screen saver, a photo of him and Zoe in front of the fountains at the Bellagio, smiled at him—their honeymoon photo. He’d been out of the office for over an hour. His computer shouldn’t be on. It was set to shut down after ten minutes. His gaze raked the room. Nothing was out of place. He nudged the mouse and the screen saver dissolved into a webpage with lines of text and numbers, his bank account. He frowned and leaned forward, staring at the last line of numbers. “That can’t be—” But it was. The balance was over seven figures. Seven figures? He wiped a hand down over his mouth.
Banking error, he thought. It had to be. The balance had soared late yesterday with a wire transfer from his investment account.
He grabbed the mouse and quickly logged into his investment account. When the numbers came up, he stared at the screen. His balance was zero. The last transactions, dated yesterday, showed that he’d sold all his GRS shares and made a wire transfer. Only, he hadn’t sold any shares yesterday. And the number of shares was wrong—it was too high. Way too high. He didn’t own that much GRS stock. He shook his head in disbelief as he opened his middle desk drawer for a pen and notepad. Straightening this mess out was going to require extended time on hold, he was sure.
He froze. Nestled among the sticky notes, pens, and scattered paperclips, was his gun—the gun that no one knew about, not even Zoe. He’d left it locked in a trunk in the attic. At home.
He scanned the room again, feeling the old mode of alertness settle on him. He was suddenly aware of the complete silence in the office. Outside, the rain lashed the windows, but inside, the quiet pressed down on him. He remained still, controlling his breathing as he listened. Nothing. Absolute silence. Not good. He’d gotten rusty. He hadn’t even noticed the stillness of the office when he arrived. Now it seemed to be shouting at him.
The walls weren’t thick. He could usually hear something—the whir of a printer, the faint murmur of Connor on the phone, the squeak of Sharon’s chair as she swiveled between her computer and printer, but there was nothing now.
Jack stood slowly. He stared at the gun for a moment, debating. Finally, he picked it up and held it with two hands, elbows bent so the barrel pointed to the ceiling. He moved silently until his back was against the wall beside the door. The gun felt good in his hands, comforting. His breathing was slow and even as he listened. He pivoted through the door, arms extended, almost surprised at how easily his muscles transitioned back to the familiar movements.
Still no sound from inside Connor’s office. He moved quickly and noiselessly across the low-pile gray carpet. He leaned against the doorframe to Connor’s office, waited a moment, and then in one swift movement, he twisted the doorknob and swung into the room.
Rome
Tuesday, 5:10 p.m.
AS the sun dipped to the west side of the Piazza Navona, shadows crept across the ellipse-shaped piazza toward the Egyptian obelisk that crowned Bernini’s Four Rivers Fountain. At the northern end of the piazza, where Roman chariots had swept around the curve when the area was a stadium, a man in an expertly cut black suit sat in front of a café in the shade of a canopy, watching
the tourists eat gelato as they strolled across the cobblestones. He sat perfectly still, a subtle tension in his body language separating him from most of the people in the piazza. He had sandy hair tinted with a bit of gray and a round face with flat features. His nose barely broke the plane of his cheekbones, and his lips were small and thin. His light gray eyes constantly scanned the crowds.
Water tumbled through the three fountains of the piazza, magnets for the wandering sightseers. A light breeze pushed at the edge of the white linen tablecloth. The man picked up the phone, checked for messages, then put it back down at an exact right angle to the untouched basket of bread centered on the table.
A waiter hurried through the tables, an antipasti plate of meats, cheeses, and vegetables in his hand.
The phone rang. The man answered with the customary Italian greeting. “Pronto.”
An abrasive American voice said, “It’s done.”
The man switched to English as well. “Excellent.” The waiter deposited the plate on the tablecloth, and as the man finished his call, his body seemed to uncoil slightly in the chair as he lifted his wine glass in a silent toast.
Chapter Two
Dallas
Tuesday, 6:39 p.m.
OFFICER Terry Isles rubbed his hand across his chest, thinking that he really shouldn’t have had that to-go burrito bowl from Chipotle for lunch. He reached into the pocket of his Texas Highway Patrol uniform, pulled out a roll of Tums, and popped one in his mouth. Although, heartburn was a small price to pay so that Stephanie, his fifteen year old daughter, could have her favorite food, a chicken burrito from Chipotle, on her birthday. Add in the fact that she wasn’t embarrassed to be seen eating her favorite meal with her cop dad during first period lunch at her packed high school lunchroom and, yeah, he could handle a little heartburn. He spun the steering wheel of his cruiser and merged onto the empty state highway, leaving behind a new suburban housing development, Deep Creek Commons, which had been hit hard by the storm. The flurry of activity—the highway patrol cars, the ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars were in the neighborhood, and now the rhythm of the road had settled back into its normal sleepy state.